Sean Penn's Son Hopper Reveals the Insane Name His Dad Almost Gave Him

by Jackie Willis
7:34 AM PDT, June 15, 2016

Playing
Sean Penn's Son Hopper Reveals the Insane Name His Dad Almost Gave Him

Hopper Penn was almost named after his famous father's love of meat.

The 22-year-old son of Sean Penn and Robin Wright tellsInterview magazine that he ended up being named after the late Dennis Hopper, but that almost wasn't the case. "It has to do with Dennis Hopper; my dad was friendly with him and idolized him," he says. "My dad wanted to name me Steak, the food, because he loves it so much. But my mom was never going to go for it."

As to why his parents went with Hopper and not Steak, the Hollywood heir says it had to do with when his mother was pregnant with him. "What they told me is that I hopped in her stomach, I didn't kick, so they went with that," he explains.

Both Hopper and his older sister, Dylan Penn, have followed in their parents' footsteps by getting into acting. Hopper even has a role in his father's new film, The Last Face. "I asked if I could PA for it. He said, 'No, you're going to act in it.' I said no, because I'm very shy; I didn't know how to act," he recalls. "He said, 'Well, you'll get paid.' So I was like, 'I'm on board.' After the first day, I fell in love with it."

“I think the one piece of general advice that they gave was just to never do something that felt off,” she said. “Never do something that felt false for me or else that's going to show up on screen. Which really helped me in the end.”